Imagine that you have the fastest car in Formula 1. However, you decide to put one of your engineers behind the wheel and tell him to win the race. What are the odds? After all, he will drive the best racing car. Nevertheless, we all know that chances for a triumph аre close to zero.

It is the same with Kanban implementation. If you just say to your team “Kanban is the best method for workflow management, make it work for you”, your staff will probably feel like an experienced F1 engineer with a great car that he doesn’t know how to drive. So instead of creating uncertainty, make sure your team is familiar how to use Kanban properly.

The Kanban implementation steps are well known: Visualize the Workflow, Eliminate Interruptions, Manage Flow, Make Process Policies Explicit, Encourage Feedback Loops, Improve Continuously. However, sometimes things go wrong and Kanban doesn’t work as it should. Often, managers don’t know what are the reasons and they blame the system itself.

Let’s dig a bit deeper and reveal some of the main reasons that may fail you in implementing Kanban in your work process.

Nobody Explained What Kanban Actually Is About

The Kanban method looks simple, but many teams fail very early in their attempt to implement it. Before you begin with Kanban implementation, you need to educate your team about what is going to happen. Many managers are tempted to use Kanban, because of its popularity without even realizing that it is a whole new world. So before adopting it, explain to your team members what are the main Kanban principles and practices, and what are the advantages of using such a system. In doing so, you will avoid future resistance and misconceptions about the positive impact that Kanban actually has on their workflow.

Replace the Whole Process. The Current One Doesn’t Work.

You may be tempted to present a whole new work process when implementing a Kanban system. But the approach of starting everything from zero may cause you a lot of trouble. The implementation of a Kanban system is a fundamental change. Such changes generate a lot of stress and uncertainty. Those two are the main reasons your team’s productivity and efficiency may drop dramatically. This is the exact opposite of what your purpose is.

So, how to implement Kanban?

After all, Kanban is all about continuous improvement. So instead of throwing your current process away, map it on a Kanban board and start improving. By doing so, you will able to identify weak spots in your current workflow and remove them. This way your team won’t be stressed by future uncertainty and you will be able to achieve higher efficiency much faster.

Nobody Respects the WIP Limits

I am astonished by the number of teams that have already implemented Kanban, but still don’t apply WIP limits at all. Recently, I’ve heard a project manager complaining that his team’s workflow is overloaded and tasks are moving very slowly to “done” status. It appeared that their Kanban board is overcrowded at each stage of the workflow. Guess why. They didn’t apply WIP limits with the implementation of the Kanban system.

Applying WIP limits and respecting them is not just a fancy trend in Kanban project management. It is one of the main practices that ensure your teammates are focused on their current work and process assignments faster. By ignoring work in progress limits, you will miss good opportunities to spot bottlenecks in your work process. It is actually one of the most important Kanban implementation steps.

Keep in mind that applying WIP limits may not work from the very first try. It doesn’t have to discourage you.You need to monitor your workflow constantly and adjust WIP limits until you find the optimal configuration for your team.

You Create a Parallel Universe on the Kanban Board

Here is a major mistake when implementing Kanban. Tasks appear directly to “done” stage without being pulled from the backlog and going through the workflow. Even worse, they don’t appear at all. I have done this a couple of times when I started using Kanban software and it totally confused my teammates.

So, how to use a kanban board?

If you have a problem with your Kanban implementation process, keep in mind this simple rule.

Visualize everything you do.

This is the purpose of using a Kanban board. By doing so, every team member will have a clear overview of what is happening and who is working on what. It helps to estimate your team’s work capacity and use it to its maximum level. By hiding work from the Kanban board, you may receive more work requests without having the capacity to handle them. However, your teammates don’t know this, because the Kanban board sends them positive signals about your availability.

Same applies if you hold tasks on the board without working on them. This way team members think you are busy, so they won’t request additional work from you, while you actually have some free work capacity. In order to avoid these misconceptions, you can schedule daily stand up meetings. This is the time when every team member needs to share his accomplishments, current tasks, and possible obstacles. It will keep everyone accountable and the whole team will be on the same track.

You Don’t Use the Full Capacity of Kanban

Contemporary Kanban software solutions offer a lot of additional tools that may help you improve productivity and efficiency. Not using them is like ignoring your car’s air conditioner while driving through a 40°C degree desert road. You reach your final destination sweaty and exhausted.

Different analytics tools like Monte Carlo simulations, flow efficiency charts and others will give you the opportunity to spot problematic parts in your workflow and make precise forecasts. The advantage is that it is all based on a real data, but not on a gut feeling.

So What Is the Bottom Line?

Realizing the full capacity of Kanban is not as easy as it may seem. After all, it is a complicated system with a great variety of features and tools. However, if you make the effort to discover all the treasures it hides, you may be able to achieve amazing levels of productivity and efficiency. If you are new to the Kanban method, get familiar with basics before digging deeper. If you think you are advanced, exit your comfort zone and keep learning. After all, Kanban is all about continuous improvement and if you ignore it, you may also fail with Kanban implementation as many others.

Big success starts from small steps. Get started with Kanban the right way using our free Kanban board presets: